About 18 months ago I was pulling out of my second tier Starbucks and putting on my seatbelt as I pulled out. (An aside, I have one Starbucks I like, two I like ok, and one I hate on my trajectories from work and home. This morning I went to the one I hate. It hasn't ruined my day but didn't improve it either. Which is bad, because if I'm going to have a donut, it better improve my day.)
Anyway, I see a motorcycle office pull in behind me and he turns on his lights. I pull over slowly and carefully, just like I learned in the How to Beat a Ticket book I read many years ago. (Aside 2: my parents used to co-own a lake house in North Georgia and someone had brought up a revolving paperback rack and stocked it with WEAK paperbacks. Every once in a great while someone would bring a few more crappy paperbacks up there. How to Beat a Ticket was a late arrival. I read it. Keep that in mind.)
Anyway #2, I pull over and roll down my window. He walks up and says something about my not having my seatbelt on. I switch into incredibly polite differential mode. It doesn't work. He writes me a ticket and tells me to buckle up. As he's handing me the ticket, I thank him. Let me say that again, I thank him. For costing me $95.
So today I have Honey's mountain bike in the car to take it to the shop. I pull into the alley where the shop has parking and all the spots are filled. So I pull out onto the street and park behind a panel van. I get the bike out of the car, go inside, talk to them about the bike.
I come back out and get in the car. I notice a parking enforcement office writing the van a ticket. I have a moment of delusion in thinking I have come out to my car at exactly the right moment. But then I see her writing my license plate number down and she says something I don't hear. I roll down the window and ask her what she said. She has gone into hostile ticket writer mode. (I can't blame her. Being a parking officer has to be one of the worst jobs in the world.) She says if I leave I'll just get the ticket in the mail.
I ask her what I've done wrong and it turns out that it's "street cleaning" time for that block. I hadn't checked and the van was blocking the sign. I wait for her to give me the ticket. I'm mad but don't show it. Then when she walks up to me to hand it to me...
and wait for it...
I thank her.
What is wrong with me? Really, I want to know.
1 comment:
Trust me, that is the best thing you could have done in those situations. I have no problem whatsoever in confronting cops, and it has never done me any good. I once started talking "back" to a cop, who had given me a moving violation on my bicycle (which is no different than one you get while using a car), when it escalated beyond sanity. At least for him. I told him, as I was peddling away, to find some "real criminals". His reply? And I swear I'm not making this up: "Yeah? Well, just wait until you're robbing a bank!!" Terrific.
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